


Through the mist

by TheDreamSeller



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Although this is not smutty, M/M, Magical shop AU, the epilogue will be
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 14:49:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18033743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDreamSeller/pseuds/TheDreamSeller
Summary: There's a shop without a ceiling where the stars sparkle down on you. It will find you if you need it. Damen runs into it on his way home.





	Through the mist

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this for Captive Prince Secret Santa 2k17 but was never quite satisfied with it. So I edited it and edited it and edited it until I really don't want to edit it again. I hope you enjoy.

The first time Damen saw it, he thought of an illusion. A fancy brought on by the thick fog that snuck down his throat and didn’t allow him breathe. That must be it. Because no one would ever think to set up shop there, in that narrow street stuck between two blocks of concrete, lit only by a few scattered street-lamps. Most of the time, their light-bulbs managed to provide a feeble, flickering glow. Tonight, even that little light dissolved in the watery fog. But Damen was a big guy, and the alley was the fastest way home from work, so he took it every night.  
A fancy, he told himself. Maybe brought on by tiredness: he’d just finished a double shift.He blinked once. Nothing had changed. So he tried closing his eyes, counting to ten and reopening them. But it was still there. Looking polished and neat, but not brand new. Looking as if it had always been there, despite certainly not being there a couple hours earlier. A door. A glass door, to be precise, with a white frame. Light spilled out of it, losing itself in the mist, never quite reaching the floor.  
It looked like it was glowing. So, for a moment, Damen stood there and stared at it. He didn’t realize he’d lifted his hand, reaching for it, until the light lit his brown hand and he could see the wrinkles on his knuckles. He clenched his fist, and got closer to it. When peering inside only showed him light, he went for the round brass handle. It was covered in ice that felt like needles against his palm, but when Damen turned it, it gave: the door opened, and Damen stepped in.  
No sooner where both of his feet inside that the door shut on his own behind him. But Damen hardly noticed. Despite the light spilling outside, the room was barely lit. Shelves lined the walls on either side. On each of them were glass jars filled with what looked to be dry flowers, herbs and powders. The air was heavy with the smell of cinnamon. Then Damen took a step forward, and the smell changed, now a fruity fragrance that reminiscent of the red berry tea his mother drank. He took another step, and it changed again. Then he looked up.  
Cages hung above his head. Their glowing bars curled themselves into whimsical shapes, branches spilled out of them. But it was the ceiling itself that left Damen breathless. Or rather, the lack of it: Where the ceiling should have been, Damen could only see ink-black night and the stars sparkling within it. Purple clouds, heavy with rain, passed by.  
Lightning lit up the room, the deep rumble of thunder followed.  
Then there was the delicate, metallic tinkling of bells. Right after, the deep and guttural ringing of a pendulum.  
The source of the latter sound was an old grandfather-clock. It was on the upper half of the wall farthest away from him. It was in the company of at least ten other clocks, different in shape and colour. Under them, shoved against the wall, was a counter. In front of it, a small blackboard like those you can find outside of cafes.  
“Welcome.” It read “ I’m Auguste, and this is my shop.  
I don’t know what you’re looking for, but I know that you’re looking for it.  
Is it a kitty, or determination? Maybe the love of your life.  
Whatever you need, I don’t know. But the shop does.  
And it has found you to give it to you.  
It’s on the counter. Take it, it’s yours!  
Just keep in mind that what you want and what you need are rarely the same thing.  
Love,  
Auguste”  
“Excuse me?” Damen asked. His voice echoed. “ Auguste, sir?”  
There was no answer. Nor was there a shop-keeper in sight. So Damen made his way to the counter. Despite the soft soles of his sneakers, his steps echoed. Like the blackboard said, there was a vial on the counter. It was palm-sized, similar to the ones that were on the shelves, and contained a purple, iridescent liquid that twinkled in the dim light. A white tag hung from it. “I am what you need.” It read.  
Damen hesitated. Once again, he lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “This is not a fancy.” he said out loud. Then again: “Can I just take this?” But he didn’t dare touch the vial.  
“One day“ a bored voice said “a person will walk through that door, read that message and understand it.” The voice paused. “Evidently, that day isn’t today.”  
“Pardon?” Damen said. “Is anyone here?” Right after, “What is this?”  
“Why do I even keep the message” the voice went on in a dry tone. “I wonder. They all ignore what it is says anyway.”  
The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once.  
“Excuse me?”  
“Maybe I should put an arrow there instead. One of those garish, hideous things that light up. I think it would improve the situation. But I am not being paid enough.”  
Damen looked behind his shoulder, and while there were lots of knick-knacks, no-one was there.  
“Now that I think about it, I’m not being paid at all.” The voice kept going, the tone only getting dryer. “Which is a pity; I do a marvelous job here.” A scratching sound, like nails on wood, drew Damen’s attention back to the counter. The vial slid backwards on the wood. He followed it with his eyes. As abruptly as it had started moving, it stopped, and only then did Damen see the hand gripping the tag.  
It was pale, and fine boned, wearing a heavy signet ring with a blue stone. The man it belonged to was sitting behind the counter, leaning backwards in his chair, legs crossed. He toyed with the tag of the vial with one hand while the other kept drumming on the counter. He was blond, and gorgeous, and his cool blue eyes stared straight into Damen’s.  
Neither of them moved. Then the man narrowed his eyes:  
“Maybe,” the man mused “I should make you a permanent fixture of this place. Maybe- he went on - I could use you to catch flies. Pixies and kobolds as well. That mouth sure looks big enough.”  
It took a second for Damen to snap out of it. Nonetheless, he did.  
“Oh look kids! He stopped gaping! There goes my plan!”  
“Excuse me, are you Auguste?”  
The man didn’t move. Nor did he speak. So Damen went on: “No wonder this place is empty if that’s how you talk to every customer.”  
Slowly, almost as slowly as the clouds kept passing overhead, the man stood up. He leaned over the counter, bracing his weight on his palms.“ You can see me?” he asked, his tone neutral. Damen nodded.  
As is now believing him, the man lifted one hand slowly, then moved it in front of Damen’s face, checking whether or not Damen was following its movements. And Damen did, until the hand was so close to his face, he was going cross-eyed. Then the man snapped his fingers. “Shouldn ’t I?” Damen asked.  
The man exhaled, let his hand fall back on the counter. “That’s novel.”  
Damen observed him a second, then he asked: “Are you Auguste?”  
The man shook his head “No.” And then didn’t volunteer any more information.  
“Who are you, then?”  
“I own this place. That would make me the owner.”  
“But you’re not Auguste,” Damen repeated. 

“No”. A nonchalant wave of his hand “You may call me Owner, or Not-Auguste, or Owner Not-Auguste. Shop-keeper is fine, too. I’d go for shop-keeper if you were to ask me. It has that-” the man rubbed the tips of his finger together, almost like he had forgotten a word and was trying to pull it out of thin air. “-That ring to it. Really drives the message home on what my role in this place is.” The words were delivered with a deadpan expression.  
“No, you’re certainly not Auguste, Mr. Shop-keeper. He seems to be a much nicer fellow.”  
The man’s shoulders went rigid and the corners of his lips twitched.  
“At least we can agree on this one.”  
Once again the man didn’t add anything. So Damen he asked:  
“And do you have a name, Mr. Shop-keeper?”  
“Laurent.”  
Damen nodded. Then Damen said: “I’m Damen. What is this place?”  
Laurent shrugged, dismissing his question:  
“We’ve established that I’m a shop-keeper, that would make this a shop. The real question here is: Why can you see me? Or hear me?”  
Damen opened his mouth to answer, but Laurent waved a hand in front of his face as if to shake away a unwanted thought. “Nevermind ,” He picked the vial up by the tag and handed it to Damen. “ That’s why you’re here.” 

 

Damen had toyed with the vial all the way home. He kept upending it, watching the liquid fall through the the glass and splash on the cork, before putting it back upright.  
Laurent had promised that whatever he needed, that purple liquid would give it to him.  
Damen didn’t know if he believed it. When he’d left the shop, he’d turned around, and the door had been gone. If it vouched for or against the liquid’s effects, Damen didn’t know. Nor did he know what he might have needed. He knew he wanted a lot of things: To be able to cross his front door and feel at home. To leave his jacket on the coat-hanger without the knowledge that he’d be picking it up after a couple hours anyway to leave again. To be able to pull out the pictures they’d taken at the beach last summer. In them, he, Jokaste, Nikandros and Kastor, his brother, were laughing, half sprawled on the sand. Damen was leaning backwards. Jokaste was sitting in his lap and Nikandros and Kastor were leaning on them. He’d often tried to take them out of that box, the cardboard of which had gotten wavy from catching rain during the move. He’d always get as far as opening the flaps, then his stomach would churn and despite the pictures being turned, their smiling faces facing the cardboard of the box, he would barely manage to reach for the frames. And even without seeing that one picture, he could see his brother’s arm on Jokaste’s shoulder and wondered if they’d already been together, then.

So he’d run his fingers along the glass and had settled for pocketing the vial. The clinking of glass against the metal button on the inside of his pocket accompanying him all the way home. It sounded nothing like the way his family ring did against the wine bottle when, later, he took it out of the cabinet, or the way the wine glass sounded when he propped it on the crystal surface of the coffee table before letting himself fall on the couch. It was a lighter sound. Like the tingling of the bells in the shop, a string of honey swinging from left to right.

A bottle of wine had slowed his movements and made his hands feel thicker, move slower. It lolled him into that hazy torpor that almost made him forget about the vial. Except, “You shouldn’t drink it.” A voice in his ear said. “ You’re too trusting. It could be poison, what then?”  
It could. But the Shop-Keeper, Laurent, hadn’t struck him as evil. Pissed off, maybe. Irritated. All around unpleasant. Mostly lonely.  
“You trust a pretty face too easily. What if I’d turned out to be different?” The voice repeated in his ear, low and persuasive. He recognized it as Jokaste’s. An afterimage of a memory long gone.  
He stared at the now empty wine bottle, then his attention shifted to the glass. Droplets still clung to the bowl.  
He took a deep breath, then pulled the vial out of his pocket.  
“What I really need” he thought, touching the brim to his lips, “is to move on.”  
He kicked his head back, and the liquid went down his throat.

Damen hadn’t know what to expect.  
The first day after drinking the stuff- was it a potion? It had tasted faintly like grapes, but that might have been the wine- he’d walked around with the giddiness of a person who knows a surprise is coming.  
He’d gone through his chores at the restaurant with an odd concentration he’d never felt before, waiting for something to change, feeling on the edge of a precipice: ready to jump without knowing if there was a net underneath. But nothing did.  
He avoided the alley on purpose, that evening. First, he’d see how this thing turned out.  
The second day he faced like the first, and the same he did with the third. The fourth, he had no hope left, only the dregs of expectation: Eventually, something out of the ordinary would happen.  
A week came and went. On the coldest day of the year, while Damen was crossing the street, he glimpsed someone with the same build and hair as him. He stopped and turned around, heart beating in his ears. Thinking maybe, maybe -  
It wasn’t Kastor, just someone who looked a lot like him, but for the briefest instant Damen had thought he was. And in that second, a pang had gone through his chest, knocking the air out of him, leaving him standing in the middle of the pedestrian crossing, as all around him people passed him. That was the moment Damen knew, whatever that thing was, it hadn’t done anything for him.  
That evening, he went looking for the shop. Unsurprisingly, it was gone. He’d been ready to jump. But the wind hadn’t changed and he found himself still standing there, the precipice in front of him. Net or not, there was nothing worth jumping for.

The second time he saw the door, he was walking home. It was exactly where it’d been the previous time, tucked into the wall, pouring light on the frozen concrete.

All around it, the air was still. During the week it’d been missing, kids had spray-painted a green and yellow tree of life on the wall. Now it looked as if the tree itself was growing out of the door.  
The doorknob was as cold as it’d been the previous time. Damen turned it and let himself in.  
The shop was more of less the way he remembered it:  
The starry non-ceiling was the same, the cages with the lit bars were lighting up the penumbra. It seemed like Laurent had added a series of globes at the feet of the counter.  
Laurent himself hadn’t changed at all. He was standing in front of the counter, leaning against it. He was staring at Damen with his arms crossed and his brows furrowed.  
“What are you doing here?” he asked. Damen shrugged. “You tell me. You’re the one that has this- he waved his hand in front of him in a gesture that encompassed the whole shop. - thing. And also the one who sold me that potion. I didn’t actually pay for it, so I guess I shouldn’t be complaining but here I am, because it didn’t do anything.”  
Laurent didn’t move, “I believe I haven’t heard you right.”  
“How are these things supposed to work?” Damen asked. “Like, are you supposed to feel better right away or-?”  
“It depends- The store gives you the means. That’s how Auguste thought it out. If the means are for you to feel better right away, that’s how it’ll work.”  
Damen snorted. “Well, I can’t be entirely sure it isn’t working, but I’m quite certain it isn’t.”  
“That’s not possible,” Laurent said with certainty. “It’s never failed before. That’s not how Auguste thought this out.”  
Then “Listen- “ Laurent brought a hand to his mouth, running a thumb on his lip in thought. Damen’s eyes followed the movement. Laurent’s plump lips looked really soft. Quite lovely. In fact, now that Damen took his time to take a closer look, all of Laurent was quite lovely. From his long legs, to his high cheekbones, to his lean body, back to those lips.  
“What’s the point “ Laurent’s cool voice broke his train of thought “ of starting a sentence with listen, if you’re not going to.” He paused. “Maybe next time I should go for ogle. That way it’ll be easier for you to comply, I assume.”  
Damen didn’t blush. His equivalent was laughing. This time, too, he grinned sheepishly. “I’m sorry” he said. “I really am. It’s just- he cut off for a second, searching Laurent’s eyes with his own - it’s just you’re really quite lovely. I apologize, though. That was rather rude of me.”  
Laurent rolled his eyes, dismissing the compliment with a wave of his hand.  
“Let’s say you’re telling the truth.” he said, “Let’s say it didn’t work. Would you be willing to give it another try?”  
Damen paused, taking a moment to gather his thoughts. “ Say this works, would it give me what I need?”  
“Yes.” Laurent replied. “It would.”  
“Then I’m game.” Damen said.“You are?” Laurent raised a brow. “ It could take a lot of time, you know? I’ve- something like this has never happened before.”  
Damen shrugged. “I don’t mind.” his throat closed, thinking of the pictures at home. “If it’ll help me, I’m game.”  
“Suit yourself.” Laurent said, then headed for a cabinet underneath one of the clocks on the wall. Damen hadn’t noticed it before, but there were lots of things he hadn’t noticed before it seemed. The stars twinkling on Laurent’s navy suit were one of them.  
“Can I ask you a question?”  
“Now he needs permission. You didn’t need it to undress me with your eyes, I hardly see why you would need it now.”  
Again, Damen grinned. “I said I’m sorry.” Laurent huffed from where he was half-hidden inside the cabinet.  
“You seemed rather certain the shop couldn’t be wrong before. Why did you choose to believe me?”  
Laurent stopped in his movements. His shoulders stiffened, then relaxed.  
“You found the shop again.” A pause, a deep breath “It doesn’t let itself be found by those who don’t have a need.”

December-January  
And so it began. Almost on a weekly basis, Damen would stop at the shop. Every time, he noticed something new about it. Be it the astrolabes that lined the walls, just above the shelves, or the fact that the globes, upon closer look, didn’t depict the earth. Today, there was a silvery puddle of whatever on the floor. He crouched down to stare at it. It looked bottomless, mist rising from it, filling the air with scents he’d never smelt before. A pale hand broke the surface, and Damen looked up: through the mist, he could see Laurent’s silhouette, elegantly crouched next to the puddle. He was playing with the liquid, letting his hand disappear just beneath the surface, only to pull it out covered by a metallic sheen that looked like quicksilver.  
“Don’t lean forward,” he warned Damen, “You might fall in. ”His blue eyes had shined like rain through the mist.  
And something had tugged inside Damen’s chest.  
“Don’t worry” he said “I won’t.”  
February  
At the beginning Damen had felt more and more defeated every time the door appeared again. Lately, though, he’d found himself looking forward to his visits to the shop. Laurent, on the other hand, was getting increasingly more frustrated every time Damen came back, rustling every time a bit more aggressively in the same cabinet until he pulled out new and weirdly coloured potions for him to try.  
Somewhere along the way he had given up wearing the full suit, ditching the jacket, trading the trousers for jeans, and only keeping the shirt which, from time to time, he exchanged with dark-blue or black turtlenecks. Those were good days.  
Today was one of those days, which led to Damen admiring the way the turtleneck clung to Laurent’s chest, as the man kept pacing down the aisle of the shop, a cup of steaming, sparkling - as in, it was filled to the brim with fine glitter - tea in his hands. He avoided the weird things on the floor without even looking.

“I’ve tried everything with you. I’ve given you what the shop gave me for you, I’ve given you what I thought would help you. And still you keep coming back.”  
“ Why do you mind so much?” Damen said, snatching a cookie from the plate that was sitting on the table.  
“Don’t you enjoy my company? I actually look forward to yours, you know.”  
Laurent glared at him. If looks could kill, Damen would be long dead. As they couldn’t - not even in a place where the tea-cup had started spitting coloured embers that then dissolved - he kept munching on his cookie.  
“ If it makes you feel better,” Damen said. “ I think it is getting somewhat better. So it’s not as if it’s completely useless, right?”  
Laurent groaned, then swallowed his tea in one go. Damen was starting to get mildly worried about him.  
The sentiment lasted just until Laurent cuffed him on the back of his head.  
“I’ve done all the research I could: Auguste’s books didn’t help, and I haven’t anything found else. My place is a mess now, the library is upside down, and it’s still not working.”  
“Wait - Damen asked – you have a place?”  
Laurent didn’t say anything, settling for some more tea.  
“I- I don’t really know anything about you.” Damen realized.  
“That’s how it’s gotta be.”  
“ Why?”  
“Because once we figure out how to help you, the shop will start moving again.”  
Damen never considered that.  
“Can it go anywhere? How does it pick who to help?”  
Laurent stopped pacing. “I don’t know. It used to be my brother’s, he built it. He made the rules. He- He’d crouched and had started going through a series of white trunks on the floor - He created it for me, back when my parents passed away.” His voice had gotten thinner, lower “At some point I didn’t need it anymore and he changed the settings and I don’t know-” he went quiet, his lips pressed in a thin line.  
“So Auguste is your brother.”  
And Laurent stopped in his movement altogether. “ Yes,” came a whisper. “ He is.” Then “He was.” Then again, this time in a more controlled voice “He is.”  
Laurent stayed crouched like that. His hands not rummaging anymore, the tension turning his shoulders rigid. So Damen stood up, went to him and offered him a hand.  
“Sir Shop-Keeper” he said. Laurent stared at the hand for a moment, then put his now-empty tea-cup on it and stood up.  
“ That’s not what the hand was meant for, you know.”  
“ Really? I’m sorry, I must have not realized it.”  
Laurent didn’t look his way as he said it, but smirked. Damen laughed. Not one of his nervous laughs, nor one of those full-belly ones. But he hadn’t had to force it, and it didn’t stop way too soon like it nowadays did.  
Laughing brought those pictures at the beach to mind; the usual pang went through him, a sharp blade that today seemed dulled by use. It passed as soon as he set eyes on Laurent again. He thought back to the pictures, and got an idea.  
“Can you go outside?” he asked.  
Laurent turned towards him, brows furrowed. “Why wouldn’t I be able to?”  
Damen shrugged. “I shouldn’t even be supposed to see you.”  
Laurent looked stunned for a moment, then something in his expression changed: amusement suited him well, Damen decided.  
“People can’t see me inside here because the shop hides me.” He gestured around him. His eyes twinkled with mischief. “Am I pretty enough you thought me otherworldly?”  
Damen grinned.  
Laurent crossed his arms and he cocked his head in thought. “What do you think me to be? You must have had some ideas.”  
Damen grinned, and so did Laurent. “So, why didn’t it hide you from me?”  
Laurent rolled his eyes, and turned around. “ Because it doesn’t know how to mind its own business.”  
Laurent’s hair shone in the dim light of the shop. He’d pulled his sleeves up to his elbow. Damen could see the muscles flicker under his skin as he pulled in hair back in a ponytail.  
“ Would you like to go out for a coffee?” The words came out all at once, like an unraveling ball of yarn. Only there was no cat playing with it. And as such, it had just fallen, and without anyone giving it a direction, couldn’t be stopped. “If you want to. I mean- he tried again - I’d really like to. Go.” And it felt like the ball kept on rolling “With you, I mean.” and rolling “I’ve been wanting to ask for some time now, just to- and rolling - spend some time with you.” until - Laurent raised an eyebrow, his arms crossed over his chest - the cat caught it. “Oh” he said coolly “Now would you?”  
“Yes,” Damen nodded, finding his composure again. “And what would I gain from that?”  
There was a small, color-changing parrot perched in one corner. There was a small mermaid swimming in a bowl. Damen stared at them, and thought. “What do you want?” he asked.  
“I don’t know.” Laurent shrugged. “You tell me.” He took a step back, and Damen followed. “It wouldn’t be fair otherwise, would it? Where would the effort be in that?” And then he took another step back. “No fun.”  
There was a plant in one corner that had once tried to eat him. What could someone that had all this want? “Entertainment.” Damen said. “You’re always looking for entertainment.”  
“That” Laurent smiled “Is a lie.”  
“That” Damen answered “Would be bad. It would mean you tried to feed me to your goddammen plant out of cruelty rather than out of boredom.”  
Laurent shrugged. “First of all, I didn’t trip you. You tripped on me. There’s a difference.”  
Damen snorted.  
“There is” Laurent kept going, ignoring him. “Second of all, it was a fascinating experience. I’d always wondered if she’d try to eat a person.” He arched an eyebrow. “I’ve never been quite sure.”  
“And as you’ve just proved, you entertain me just fine where we are.”  
“Then maybe you could get coffee with me as a thank you. For having entertained you.”  
“I could. But I could also give you the plant to bring home. See how it behaves, then report to me. I’ve always wondered.”  
And that’s when it hit him. “Come on, I bet you’ve never had coffee before, have you?” and before Laurent could answer. “Aren’t you curious of what it would be like? Taste like?” And that, it turned out, got his attention.  
It wasn’t just that Laurent was a curious person, it was that Laurent wanted to be a curious person. It wasn’t about the coffee. It was throwing down the gauntlet. It was using a bait to try to catch the neverending sea.  
The muscles of Laurent’s neck seemed to become more rigid, his ponytail swinging the slightest bit as he cocked his head to the side and observed him.  
This time, Damen thought, he’d won. He thought so right until Laurent passed him and got a coat out of one of the many antique armoires. “Let’s go.” He said, then lingered. Then, “You have a good eye, Damianos.” And there was something sharp, almost fascinated on his face.  
And maybe Damen had won, but he had no idea how.  
“I’m coming” he said.  
Laurent nodded hesitantly, almost shyly. Something low in his stomach fluttered.

It didn’t go exactly as planned: It turned out Laurent had, indeed, never tried coffee. It also turned out that Laurent hated coffee. It was, quote, disgusting, bitter, why would anyone sane drink this willingly, unquote. His lips puckered in disgust, but his eyes shone with the excitement of discovery.  
That was the day Damen started storing away small information about Laurent.

March

Laurent liked the color blue.  
He was twenty-one years old.  
He did live in the shop, in a way. There was a trap door under the counter that led to his apartment, which seemed to be enchanted as well, but to which Damen hadn’t so far gained access to.  
The apartment was enchanted because his brother had been a magician, a warlock? Something like that. Magic was for sure involved.  
He liked reading.  
He had lots of books.  
He forced himself to learn for the sake of knowledge, no matter how boring the subject.  
He had no tolerance for boredom. None at all.  
So sometimes, when he was bored he started tinkling with vials and liquids and fire. If Damen was present, he got used as guinea pig to test the concoctions. If he wasn’t, he was used as a guinea pig anyway, only Laurent would be impatient by that point.  
So sometimes, when he was bored, he’d make bets with Damen. One time he’d pointed to the white trunk under a shelf. “We’ll go out for tea if you put on the first thing you find in there.” he’d sniffed.  
“If you are getting antsy, or bored, you just need to tell me.”  
Laurent had tapped his feet. It had made Damen smile, so he’d gone for it. The first thing he’d found in the trunk, he’d put on. To his chagrin, and Laurent’s amusement, it had been a mask. Not a pretty venetian mask, nor one of those with an elastic band. It had been a rubber mask. A horse-head. Its mane made out of real fur. When Damen had put it on, the neck of the mask had been long enough to rest on his shoulders. Why Laurent had something like that lying around in his shop, Damen wondered, was anyone’s guess. He hadn’t indulged too long in those thoughts, though, because through the eye-holes, he’d seen Laurent doubling over. At first it had been only a low sound you could barely make out. Then it had gotten louder, and louder until Damen recognized it as laughter. Laughter so strong, Laurent had tried to suffocate it first with a hand on his mouth, and then by biting his palm.  
Neither had worked.  
Eventually, the laughter had subsided. When Damen had been allowed to take his mask off, Laurent had patted him on the head: “Good horsey”. Then started laughing again. The sound had made Damen smile and his stomach flip. And he’d stored that moment.  
Other things he’d noticed were:  
Laurent had a cat named Mercapto.  
He didn’t, to Damen’s knowledge, have any friends besides a teenager, Nicaise, that visited from time to time.  
He was determined, he was clever. He knew how to make Damen laugh.  
He was gorgeous.  
He would eventually leave.  
He was starting to become a problem.

April

It was starting to become a problem. Somewhere along the way, he’d forgotten about the pictures in the cardboard boxes and had started stopping at the store almost every day.  
He’d started bringing Laurent small gifts. Cookies to have with his tea, coffee – after only seven tries, because Laurent was nothing if not determined, it had turned out he found it palatable, after all, with lots of sugar -.  
He hadn’t thought, not even for a minute, that it might have been too much when he’d gotten the box of chocolates. Not when the clerk at the store had asked him if he wanted it wrapped, or when a colleague had asked who the lucky lady was. It had come so natural to him, that he hadn’t realized, until he’d handed the box, wrapped in golden foil, to Laurent, and Laurent had lifted a brow at him. Not until that moment had he realized that, somewhere along the way, he’d turned friendship into courtship.  
All the same, Laurent had accepted the chocolates. “It’s very kind” he’d said, putting emphasis on the kind.  
And Damen had felt like once more he was teetering on the edge. One step away from falling, no net under him. He could still back out. He could still backtrack. They could still go back to that delicate friendship they’d grown comfortable with over the past few months.  
He could joke about it, say it was nothing, and they’d go back to how things were before this very moment. Back to the boxes and the masks and the admiring from afar.  
Damen was still thinking it over when a lock of hair that Laurent had tucked behind his ear got loose, falling and catching on his lips.  
They’d always been gorgeous lips. In the last months, he’d gone from admiring them like you would a far away star, to wanting to run his thumb over them, to wanting to kiss them, feel them give under his own.  
He’d asked himself how much he’d have to suck on the pale skin of Laurent’s throat to bruise it. And now, in this moment, he wondered what it would be like to hold Laurent’s hand, the signet-ring cold against his skin. To make him laugh. To bring him out to dinner and to see him in the kind of soft, post love-making clothing only lovers get to see each-other in.  
He was still on the edge of the precipice, but there was the shimmer of a star waiting in the dark. So Damen jumped. He took Laurent’s fine-boned hand in his, then kissed the back of it. “Anytime” he said. Laurent didn’t lower his gaze, his cheeks pinked. For a moment he looked awfully serious, then his mouth twitched. Damen felt something inside him settle.  
Something settled under his feet, too. The pavement vibrated and a sound, like a cog turning and locking in place, echoed around the shop.  
Laurent’s eyes narrowed. “You better not let me down,” he hissed, his gaze boring into Damen’s own. “You better not.”

Dating, Jokaste had once told him, meant getting to know someone all over again.  
The two of them had known each-other for a fairly long time, and still it seemed to him as if he hadn’t known her well enough: unfaithfulness he would have never have expected from her. He had loved her, though, and he knew she had loved him.  
But she had moved on, and as he stared at Laurent, sitting in front of him in the small coffee shop that had become their place, looking far too real to have come out of a place where the air whispered in your ear, he realized he had, too.

“You know” Laurent started. He was wearing glasses today, they kept slipping down his nose. “ I think you may be more trouble than you’re worth, Damen.” He leaned his cheek on one of his hands, toyed with the sugar packets on the table with the other.  
Damen reached for Laurent’s hand. “You think? I think I’m just enough trouble. No more than needed. No less, either.”  
Laurent smiled, leaned back in the chair and let his head loll to the side, against the cold glass of the window.  
“I’ve seen the world with that shop. Some of those globes in there? They don’t show this earth, they don’t show this world. Why would you be worth staying?”  
Damen grinned, slowly closing his fingers around Laurent’s.  
“ I don’t know" Damen said. “ But you do. If you didn’t think I’d be worth it, then you wouldn’t be here.” He felt Laurent’s foot gently rub against his own. “So, I guess you’re the only one that can answer that question for me.”  
Laurent shook his head, his fingers running down Damen’s from the tips to the knuckles and then all the way to his wrist. A tender caress that made him shiver.  
“ I thought the shop moved of its own volition.” Damen said  
“In a way.” Laurent paused, turning to look at the headlights chasing each-other outside the window. Damen knew what was coming. “Yesterday I took a look at the settings. Auguste-” He paused. Took a deep breath “ He never actually changed them. My needs- Laurent’s voice was getting smaller. The foot that had made his way up Damen’s leg and had been caressing his shin slowly, quit moving. - come before anything else.”  
“ Really?” Damen smiled at him. He leaned forward, bringing himself as close to Laurent as the table between them allowed.  
“ And what would those be?”  
“ It seems to think I need someone determined.” His foot started caressing again. “Someone who’ll come for five months straight to the same shop on the off chance that something will change.” His sharp gaze fixed on Damen, then he smirked. “Do you happen to know someone like that?”  
“ I may" Damen said “ but how is he going to find you?”  
Laurent leaned forward, his hands finding the lapels of Damen’s jacket, pulling him towards himself, half sprawling him over the table.  
“As long as he needs me, he won’t ever have any trouble.” Their chests pressed against one another. Laurent smelled like the shop and lavender and wood. Then Laurent kissed him. And his lips were both as soft as Damen had imagined, and nowhere as pliant.  
And somehow, he thought, they tasted like magic.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this.  
> I really hope you enjoyed it.  
> I think I am only planning another smutty coda for this one, but I really love the shop, so who knows. Any and all comments are welcome, so let me know what you think.  
> I do have a tumblr. I, in fact, have two: my [main](noire-queen.tumblr.com) and my [writing blog](musturbations.tumblr.com). This one is fairly new, but I do write - and post- 5 minutes every day. So feel free to come say hi!


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